Clean out your brand and your business
By AHP Staff
Spring cleaning is deep, man! Pun intended. When cleaning a business, it’s even deeper still. It can be a complete reinvention or reformation of your brand identity.
If you don’t own your own salon or salon suite, don’t stop reading now. This isn’t about cleaning out the back room and organizing the drawers of the front desk. This is about taking the time to clean your business identity, whether it’s a full salon or spa, just one rented chair, or the business you’re providing your clients as an employee of someone else. There’s no better time than right now to clean your brand and your business.
A meaningful spring cleaning of your business should begin with thoughtful consideration of the following five questions. Be honest with yourself. Ask some of your clients to weigh in. Consult your coworkers and loved ones. There are no wrong answers.
If an answer feels wrong to you (i.e., it’s not the answer you want for your business), now you know which area needs cleaning.
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1. Take stock of your brand identity as a beauty professional; take stock of how others view your brand—do they match?
If the way the community has come to describe your business on Yelp! and in the streets doesn’t match who your business really is, it’s time for some serious public relations.
2. Do you love the mission and values statements of your business? (Don’t tell me you don’t have any!)
If your mission no longer fills your belly with butterflies and ignites passion in your soul, it’s time for a new one.
3. Do you want to lower or supersede the expectations your clients and community have set for your business?
If your clients have such outrageous expectations that you feel you’re being taken advantage of or walked all over, it’s time to clean out your book. Grow a backbone, stick to the expectations you’ve set for your business, and the overdemanding clients will fire themselves. Similarly, if your clients are “too easy” and you’re no longer excited and challenged by the type of requests walking in the door, raise your expectations and surpass your clients’ expectations, and the higher level of work will bring in the types of advanced service requests that excite you.
4. Have you lost sight of who or what you wanted your business to be somewhere along the way?
Businesses often change direction from what they originally thought they’d be; it’s called rebranding or repositioning and that’s OK. But, if your business has gotten away from its original branding and you really liked that branding, it’s time to do some cleaning. Stay true to your roots—if they’re roots that will grow the business you want.
5. Are you aimed toward your dreams and who you want to be?
It’s not enough to just be decluttered and all sparkly clean. The world is constantly evolving, and your business must as well. Make sure that when the cleaning is complete, it leaves your business in a position to move toward making all your dreams come true.
Spring cleaning, especially if you’ve never done it to a business, can be overwhelming. Don’t expect to get it all done in one day; just set a time goal so the project doesn’t drag on and on. If you find yourself hung up on a detail, ask yourself, “If I was opening a new business tomorrow, would I want that as part of my mission, that client on my books, that goal to work toward, etc.?”
Don’t just accept it if your business is stuck in a rut, overcluttered, or headed in the wrong direction. A good cleaning is good for the windows, the furniture, the soul, and the success of the business.
Cleaning isn’t just about sorting through things and getting rid of clutter. It’s about taking stock of who you are, and how others see you. It’s a chance to redefine yourself, to change expectations, and to remember that it’s never too late to recapture who you were, or to aim for who you want to be.
—author unknown